


A Visit to the Old Acquainted

by MangoRicePudding



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-05-31 01:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15108614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MangoRicePudding/pseuds/MangoRicePudding
Summary: Bucky Barnes started recovering some of his memories. Oddly, the first person he visited was Peggy Carter. Their newly formed friendship guided Bucky towards his past.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's a story where Bucky finds himself and Cap finds him.

"Hello."

Peggy looks up from her bed. She wasn't expecting a visitor at this time. It was one o'clock in the morning. A complete darkness had taken over the city. In a distance, entangled tree branches waved with a breeze. Her window was cracked open with a slid just enough for a grown man to slide in. A shadow stood in the dark corner. She squinted but couldn't recognize who it was.

I might be mistaken. She thought to herself. But a sense of familiarity seized her by the heart.

"Cap?"

The shadow moved. Then, slowly, a man emerged from the darkness. One step forward. Far beyond where the moonlight would reach, but just enough for Peggy to recognize his face.

"... Sergeant Barnes?"

Peggy froze. She stared at Barnes like she had never seen him before. Bucky looked her in the eyes. He nodded carefully, as if sending a greeting from seventy years ago.

Peggy cleared her throat.

"How are you doing?" She asked softly.

Silence.

"Ok." Peggy said. She paused for a while, thinking.

"Have you seen captain?"

Bucky nodded. A slight nod, unsure of himself. "I've met... Steve."

"That's good." Peggy smiled. Bucky felt a sudden wave of anxiety rush over him. _Why would she smile. Why is seeing Steve so important. Why is Steve so important._

_Why is Steve so important._

A fire rose from his stomach to his throat, threatening to burn him down. He swallowed, with some difficulty, to push it downward. "I don't remember him." he said abruptly. "I don't remember you either. I just saw you in the museum."

_We._  He added quietly to himself. _I saw WE in the museum._

_I was standing next to Steve, yet he was looking at you in his pocket watch._

A hint of headache. The emotion was too much, too intense.

Emotions he shouldn't have.

_рядовой (soldier)._

He heard voices from afar, voices from near.

_Captain doesn't have to know._

_Yes._

"Sergeant Barnes."

"Barnes, look at me. Focus on my voice."

He tried. But someone else's voice took over.

_Captain._

_How are you doing Bucky?_

_What are you drawing there?_

_Have you met Agent Carter?_

_Come on Stevie, let's go dance._

_What are we waiting for?_

_The right partner._

Bucky felt a chill go up his spine and vanished. He felt cold. Someone who had been put in frozen for seventy years shouldn't feel coldness. He looked out the window. A black cat sat on the fire escape, staring straightly at him. He wanted to smile.

A sense of ridicule sneaked in. But he didn't move.

Peggy was still looking at him. There wasn't any sign of inspection in that look. He couldn't make sense of the emotion held behind. But Peggy's look calmed him down a bit. He locked the fuzzy voices in his head out.

"Listen to my voice." Peggy repeated. "Sergeant, listen to me."

Bucky nodded to show that he had settled back in. Then, without a word, He took the glove off his left hand. The silver arm shined under light like a blade. He flexed his arm, and met Peggy's eyes.

He didn't say a word.

Peggy looked as if she had heard a thousand.

"...Sergeant." She let out a gentle sigh.

Bucky suddenly felt like crying. He couldn't remember the last time when it happened.

_Steve._

_Please let Steve live._

_A pungent smell of Disinfectant. Steve on the hospital bed. Brooklyn outside the window._

_Stars._

Peggy thought she saw tears ran down Barnes' face. But as she glanced another look in that direction, only a shadow remained.

Barnes was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_Morning._

Steve reached into his pocket for his phone. It was a call from Peggy.

"Hi Cap."

"Peggy. Is everything alright?"

Pause.

"I saw James Barnes last night."

Steve sprang up. "What?"

"He came in the middle of the night. We talked."

Long pause.

"Hasn’t aged a bit, just like you."

Steve was pacing across the room. He inhaled deeply, his heart pounding against his chest. His mouth felt dry: "What... what did he say?"

"You should come by today," Peggy said softly. "Come, and let's talk about this. You need to talk to someone."

Steve nodded. His eyes watered a little.

"I'll be there by one."

 

_Noon._

Steve stepped outside his apartment at noon. A cloudy day, with hardly any sunshine penetrating through the thick grayness. Steve patrolled down the street. He wore his cap low so no one would recognize him; people passed him by and no one glanced a look at the obviously broken figure of a grim man. He was too tired to meet anyone's eyes, too tired to talk, too tired to think and remember his days in Brooklyn with Bucky. He simply walked, almost aimlessly, along the road, block to block, street light to street light. For once, he allowed himself to be filled with the void of sadness. And for once, a hope grew in that void, a hope to see Bucky again, to finally capture the ghost he had hunted aimlessly, the ghost that had haunted him at nights.

 

_Nighttime._

Steve didn't stay in Peggy's room to wait for Bucky, as they both agreed that afternoon. Steve went home, and Peggy waited, half-awake and half-dreaming, until she heard a crack from the window.

Peggy looked up. Barnes was standing in the corner as the night before. Without realizing, Peggy sighed with relief. Barnes moved a little, almost uncomfortably, and met Peggy's eyes.

"Hi." He said.

"Hi." Peggy smiled and nodded.

"You told Steve I came."

"I did." Peggy wasn't surprised that he found out.

"How come he isn't here tonight?"

"We thought it should be for you to decide."

Something lighted up in Bucky's eyes. He allowed himself to smile a little.

"I still have a lot to figure out."

Peggy nodded. "I know."

"...We both lived to fight." After a while, Bucky started confessing, hesitantly, "Steve and I. Well, him more than I, of course. We both went through a lot. You know that. We used to follow orders and fight for what we believed in. But Hydra stripped any sense of belief from me. This is what's scary - I've lost my aim."

"Steve said almost the same thing to me a year ago." Peggy grinned. "It's only natural to wonder. We all do."

"Well," Bucky laughed quietly, "I was just starting to learn what natural is."

They smiled at each other, solemnly and consoling.

"You would find your answer eventually."

"What if it never comes?"

"Go out. Search for it."

"And?"

"You'll understand."

Bucky bit his lips.

"I used to... meet you without Steve knowing, right?"

Peggy sighed.

"You had... your own set of missions. Missions that Steve wasn't aware of."

Bucky nodded understandingly.

"I see."

"But on some level, I suspect he always knew," Peggy said quietly, "you couldn't keep a secret from him for that long. The times you came back with injuries and such exhaustion. He always knew."

"I still don't know why I came to see you." Bucky shrugged, "but something tells me that I'll find out eventually."

Peggy smiled sadly. That moment suddenly struck Bucky, as he finally realized Peggy had lived seventy more years than both him and Steve. She was different from the dame in the red dress at the pub. Time had settled on her, as it never would with him and Steve. For a moment he couldn't tell who was older. Seventy years spent with Hydra - was it seventy years lived, or on froze?

Bucky heard a melody from afar. The bitter sweetness that had twirled around him seventy years ago came back. This time he embraced it.

"You already know, don't you?" Peggy said eventually.


End file.
